Noelle August - Boomerang

That means I have to leave now.

He helps me search around the apartment, turning over chair cushions, checking behind curtains. “Are you sure you had them on when we got here?”

“You think I came here without my panties?”

Did I come here without my panties?

He yanks a tie from the ceiling fan over a small kitchen table, smiling as he holds it up for me. “Seems possible. I’m a little fuzzy on the details myself, but the evidence suggests we had a hell of a time.”

Maybe not quite as good as you think, I want to say, but why get into it? I find a rubber band on the kitchen counter and fashion my hair into a low bun.

I give my dress another inspection and realize there’s just no way I can show up looking like this.

“Hey, would you mind loaning me a shirt?” I say. “Like a dress shirt. I’ll . . . um, get it back to you.” While I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a weird stalker girl, my need to not look like I just pulled my clothes off a tavern floor overrules my concern with first—or second—impressions.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, and heads off to his room. He returns with a blue button-down shirt and hands it to me. “Might be a little big.”

“I’m sure it will be,” I say, but I put it on and cinch it tight around my waist, covering the worst of the problem. Now I just look like a rumpled weirdo. Though if my new boss spends any time with film people, I definitely won’t be the only rumpled weirdo in his life.

The guy picks up a pair of black-checked boxer briefs from a kitchen chair. “I was wearing these last night, so we’re getting warm.”

I grow more and more anxious as he locates items of his own clothing.

“Sorry, Mia,” he says after he’s opened every cabinet and looked in every nook and cranny of the modest apartment.

I feel a little flush of pleasure that he knows my name, quickly supplanted by embarrassment at the fact that I’m the jerk who doesn’t remember his.

In the kitchen, he pours himself a glass of juice from the fridge, sliding one across the pass-through for me too. “I don’t see them anywhere.”

Where the hell can they be? And is it better to be late for work on my very first day or to flash all my new co-workers? Decisions, decisions.

I fish out my cell phone—8:29—and sigh. “All right,” I decide. “I guess I’ll do without.”

“Commando.” He grins. “I like that in a girl.”

“Why, thanks. If you find them, feel free to keep them as a souvenir.”

“I’ll treasure them. Unless they’re granny panties. But then those might have been easier to find.”

“They are most certainly not granny panties. They’re—”

He laughs, his back to me. “Hot pink? With white butterflies?”

“Yes! How did you—”

He steps to the side and pulls open the door of his glossy Breville toaster oven. There, draped across the toasting rack, lie my panties.

Ethan

Q: On dates, do you prefer to go Dutch, or pick up the bill?

For a few seconds, I can’t shake the picture of Mia’s pink thong sitting in my toaster oven. It’s like time stops, and then I’m picturing her wearing them, and then not wearing them, until Coach Williams’s voice filters through the pounding in my head.

If you’re on time, then you’re late.

That gets me moving, as it has for the past four years. I can only imagine what Coach Williams would think of me now: late to the internship that’s supposed to change everything for me, and so hungover I’m still buzzed.

I leave the kitchen and head into the living room. The girl I woke up with—Mia—leans on a hip as she sifts through her purse, so I take a second to appreciate the view.

Damn, she’s hot. I give myself a mental slap on the back.

“Can I get your address?” she asks, pulling out a cell phone. “I need to call a cab.”

An image of last night flashes through my mind. She and I jumped into a cab as soon as it pulled up outside the bar. We were in too much of a hurry to be alone together to wait for a ride with Jason and Isis. But why the hell did we come here instead of her place? My apartment’s a biohazard.

“Forty-four Creston Drive,” I say. Pushing aside socks and shin guards, I sit on the battered couch and pull on my oxfords. “In Westwood.”

Mia makes the call, speaking in a rush to the dispatcher, but I get the feeling it’s not just because she’s late. The tone of her voice is smoky and colorful, like she talks often and laughs a lot. She’s petite. No more than 5'3", but the heels she slips on give her a four-inch boost. My shirt pools forward as she bends down, giving me an excellent angle of her perfect rack.

“Five minutes?” Mia says. “Thanks.” She hangs up and turns her attention back to me. Her eyes are green, but not the weak hazel color people try to pass off. Mia’s are clear and bright.

“All set?” I stand.

“Yep, all set.” Mia drops her phone back into her purse and pushes a coil of black hair behind her ear. Her eyes make a quick trip up and down my body, and then she glances at the front door. “So . . . thanks for the juice?”

I sidestep, blocking her path. One-night-stand protocol is to get in and get out, so to speak, but I can’t let her go yet. She’s not the only one who needs to get to Century City, and it’s too late for me to bike there. “Can you hold on a sec? I have to talk to my roommate.”

She looks around the apartment, her jaw dropping. Five seconds ago, our clothes were everywhere. “You have a roommate?”

“Yeah. Jason. And Isis. She’s Jason’s girlfriend, but she pretty much lives here. I think you met them last night at Duke’s.”

Mia gives me a shaky smile. “Okay, I feel awful admitting this, but I’m trying to remember whether your name is Evan or Ethan. So it’s safe to say I’m sketchy on some details from last night.”

Shit.

I wasn’t after anything serious, obviously. After two years with Alison, non-serious is a requirement. But this girl doesn’t even remember my name? That sucks, but I shrug and play it off.

“No problem. It’s Ethan. Ethan Vance.”

“I’m Mia Galliano.”

“Nice to meet you, Mia Galliano.” We stand there for an awkward second. Introductions seem beside the point, considering I’m pretty sure I slept with my hand on her ass. “Give me one minute,” I say, breaking the silence. “Help yourself to more juice.”

Nice one, Ethan. Because that’s what the girl wants. More PowerAde at 8:33 in the morning. I head to Jason’s room, knock on the door once and swing it open.

Jason and Isis are sitting up in bed, watching the door like they’ve been expecting me. Isis breaks into a smile and starts slow-clapping. Jason’s less subtle. He lifts a vuvuzela to his lips and blows. The loud beehive hum of the horn cuts into my brain, sending my headache to Code Red.

“Yeah, Ethan!” Jason laughs. “How’d it go, man? Was it like riding a bike?”

“A little more fun than that,” I say. But, damn. I wish I really knew.

“Did she leave?” Isis asks.

“Not yet, but she needs to.”

“Ethan!”

“Easy, Isis. We both need to leave. She has a job, and my internship starts today.”

Isis snorts. “That sucks. You look like crap.”

“Then I look better than I feel. J, I need some cash.” The words burn in my throat. I hate asking for money. “I have to chip in for a cab.”

Jason shakes his head. “Sorry, bro. I’m out. You emptied my wallet last night.”

“I did?”

Isis laughs. “Don’t you remember? You and Mia were doing body shots.”

Christ, body shots? Did I revert to being a freshman? “Never mind.”

As I head back to the living room, I consider fishing through my sports bags for stray change, but I don’t have time and I still wouldn’t find enough to pay my way. There’s only one option left. It’s going to gut me, but screw it. It’s the only way.

I find Mia standing by the front door, a sexy half-smile on her face, and my brain shorts out as I picture licking salt off her olive skin.

“Did I just hear a vuvuzela?” she asks.

“Yeah. My roommate thinks he’s funny. So, about that cab . . . Mind if I catch a ride with you?”

Mia frowns, and I can tell she’s surprised. I’m surprised too. This isn’t how I expected this morning to play out. “Sure,” she says. “No problem.”

“Cool. And uh . . . One other thing?” Fuck. I’m about to blow my chance of ever seeing this girl again—and I want to. If nothing else, to figure out what the hell we did last night. But I’m up against a wall. “You mind paying for it?”

Mia

Q: Are you a lone wolf, or do you run with a pack?

The poor guy—Ethan—looks like he’s just requested a nail file to the eyeball. So he doesn’t like asking for favors. Interesting.

“Yeah, no big deal,” I tell him. It takes all of my self-control not to reach out and touch him, straighten his red color-blocked tie or smooth the slight cowlick that rises over his straight, serious brow. Air molecules thicken between us, scintillating with that delicious energy of attraction.

Or, okay, lust.

It’s been so long since I’ve felt that, and I would love to just stay here, anchored in this moment. But I have no time.

A car horn honks, punctuating my thought.

“Guess our ride’s here,” I say.

He leans in front of me to open the door, and I become intensely aware of both his height—he has about six inches on me, and I’m in four-inch heels—and of his scent: smoky and tantalizing, like a beach bonfire.